Current spray-cooling equipment uses an arrangement of spray-cooling nozzles to direct a coolant at a heated surface to provide cooling for extreme heat fluxes (above 100 W/cm^2). These nozzles are supplied by external fluid conditioning and pumping equipment that require external power and increase both the size and complexity of the system.
Heat pipes are currently used for cooling. In a heat pipe, a two-phase fluid is hermetically-contained in a tube with wicking material at the wall. Liquid-phase fluid contained in the wick is vaporized in the hot end of the heat pipe, travels into a vapor chamber connecting the hot and cold ends of the pipe, condenses on the wick at the cold end of the pipe, and travels through the wick to the hot end of the pipe. In a heat pipe, the motive force for the fluid is provided by the effects of differential surface tension at either end of the wick.
What are needed are systems and methods for using spray cooling devices that overcome the limitations of the prior art.
Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to represent the same parts.